Recently, information processing devices such as PCs having mass storage blocks including high-capacity hard disk drives and DVDs and such as portable devices have been spreading, allowing many content users to store and manage masses of content such as music data and image data in storage means. These kinds of data are stored as digital data compressed by MP3, ATRAC, and other data compression algorithms and then encrypted as required for management.
Also, a content use form has been gaining popularity in which music content is downloaded from a networked music distribution server, an EMD (Electronic Music DISTRIBUTION) server as a music distribution server for example, and the downloaded music content is stored in a recording medium of a PC to be outputted (checked out) to a user's portable device (PD) as required for content reproduction.
SonicStage (trademark), SonicStage Simple Burner (trademark), MGIQLIP (trademark), Windows Media Player (trademark), Real Player (trademark), and iTunes (trademark), for example, are known as typical jukebox application programs for executing the management and reproduction of the above-mentioned content and the control of transfer thereof to external devices such as a portable device (PD). Each of these application programs has capabilities of downloading EMD content and transferring music data from a hard disk (HD) of a PC to devices and media connected thereto.
The above-mentioned existing applications are each configured to execute
(a) the processing of downloading content and storing the downloaded content into a hard disk (HD) of a PC; and
(b) the processing of transferring the content from the hard disk (HD) of the PC to external devices and media that are portable memories.
However, the above-mentioned existing applications are not configured to execute the download processing and the transfer processing as a sequence of processing operations.
Therefore, if the user wants to download content from a content server such as an EMD server and transfer the downloaded content to external devices or media, the user must go through a procedure of executing a download processing execution program, storing the downloaded content into the hard disk, retrieving a content group stored in the hard disk for the downloaded content, selecting the retrieved downloaded content as the content subject to transfer, and transferring the selected content to external devices or media. In some cases, the user must execute download processing and content transfer processing by use of two different applications, thereby significantly increasing the operation load of the user.
Above-mentioned iTunes of Apple Computer, Inc., one of juke box applications, has a capability of providing synchronization with ipod (AutoSync), a portable device (PD) marketed by Apple Computer, Inc. When music data is newly added to the content database, namely, the hard disk of a PC by EMD content downloading or CD ripping for example, this capability makes a comparison between the content stored in the PC and the music data stored in an ipod that is a portable device (PD) and transfers the music data that is found in the hard disk (HD) of the PC but not found in the ipod, thereby making identical the music data stored in both devices. It should be noted that the ipod and the synchronization capability (AutoSync) are described in Non-patent Document 1 and Non-patent Document 2.
Use of the above-mentioned capability allows the automatic transfer to the music data downloaded to the hard disk (HD) of the PC to the ipod. However, this capability cannot be realized but with a mass storage PD to which all music data in the HD such as the ipod can be transferred. Neither this capability can realize the processing of selectively transferring only particular music data from the hard disk of the PC. Especially, it is difficult for the synchronization capability of iTunes of Apple Computer, Inc. to select only the currently downloaded data to transfer the selected data to a portable device.
[Non-patent Document 1]
http://www.apple.co.jp/ipod/
[Non-patent Document 2]
http://www.apple.co.jp/ipod/autosync.html